Sunday, March 16, 2008

Augustine: God Is Not the World

A passage by St. Augustine on why pantheism (and Sally McFague's theology) are blasphemy from his book City of God, Book IV Chapter 12.

Chapter 12. The theory that makes God the soul of the world, the body of God.

But here is another point. And it is one which no man of quick intelligence, in fact no man at all (for there is no need here of exceptional ability) can consider unmoved. Putting aside all contentious polemics, let us note carefully that if God is the Soul of the World and the world is to him as the body to the soul, if this God is, as it were in the bosom of nature and contains all things in himself, so that from his soul, which gives life to the whole of that mass, the life and soul of all living things is derived - according to the lot assigned at birth to each; if this is so, then nothing at all remains which is not a part of God. Can anyone fail to see the blasphemous and irreligious consequences? Anything which anyone treads underfoot would be a part of God! In the killing of any living creature, a part of God would be slaugtered! I shrink from uttering all the possibilities which come to mind; it would be impossible to mention them without shame."

No comments: